After several months of turmoil with the Montgomery County Treasurer’s Office regarding the public’s access to the policy and procedure manuals, Republican candidate Melanie Bush and Democrat candidate Mandy Sunderland say they both would bring transparency to the department if elected.

Bush, who defeated incumbent Stephanne Davenport in the Republican Primary runoff election in May, said her first order of business is to visit with all county departments to make their jobs more efficient and how the treasurer’s office can help with that.

More pressing in the county upcoming installation of an enterprise resource planning system. An ERP is the integrated management of core business processes, often in real-time and mediated by software and technology. ERP is usually referred to as a category of business-management software — typically a suite of integrated applications — that an organization can use to collect, store, manage, and interpret data from these many business activities.

“I will also help to determine if we need to go ahead and implement some temporary measures to make all our departments more efficient, including the treasurer’s office, while we are in the process of converting to the new software,” she said. “All while being as transparent with the taxpayers.”

Sunderland agrees.

“I intent to make the work of the office completely transparent,” she said. “The taxpayers deserve to know how the county conducts its business and how many is being spent.”

Sunderland noted she would make sure required financial reports would be made available monthly.

“This would be something that would be done on time without fail,” she said.

The office, Sunderland said, has not “kept up with the times.” She added she welcomed the opportunity to help implement the new ERP system as well.

While it has been almost three decades since a Democrat has been elected as county treasurer, she believes now is the time to see that shift in the county.

“To me it has been like the fox watching over the hen house,” she said.